


not just alive, but loved as well

by OnyxSphinx



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: F/M, anyway this idea took hold of my brain at 2am on tendo's birthday, crossposting literally weeks later rip, so. enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24516595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxSphinx/pseuds/OnyxSphinx
Summary: Tendo, and Alison, and the two of them together; or: two thousand words of emotional fic.
Relationships: Alison Choi/Tendo Choi
Kudos: 4





	not just alive, but loved as well

He’s twenty when Trespasser makes landfall—twenty going on twenty-one, still baby-faced; his aunts coo over him and call him handsome. Tendo isn’t sure they’re right, but he must have some sort of charm, because he’s had plenty of men and women go on dates with him. 

The attack happens over multiple days; but he’s holed up in his room typing away furiously on an ancient laptop, because the other night he had this dream and he’s always wanted to write but never seemed to really have a good idea but now. Now he does. 

He comes out to a changed and grieving world and forgets all about his writing as he tries to figure out what this will mean for him. 

Apparently, it turns out to mean that, after the second monster—his grandparents call it a dragon, which he doubts is accurate but it’s as good a term as any—attacks, he signs on with the PPDC’s Jaeger Program. 

Two months in he meets Newt Geiszler. He’s just trying to get to the mess hall when, out of nowhere, a short, wild-haired man turns the corner ahead of him and slams into him with an _oof._

Tendo drops—well he’s not holding anything but if he were he would have dropped it. “What—?”

“Sorry,” the other pants, “can I hide behind you? I think I pissed some people off…” He glances nervously over his shoulder. Tendo raises a brow. 

“Alright,” he says, and begins to walk towards the mess again, “walk with me, little man.”

There’s a few moments, and Tendo almost thinks the other has decided to go in the opposite direction, but then: “…alright. But if I get pounded to a pulp it’s on you.”

Tendo hums; and a moment later, the other man falls in step with him. He’s only a bit shorter than Tendo, actually, now that he’s not doubled over panting after having run into him, but he radiates the aura of a tiny and terrorised reptile. “Who’d you piss off?” Tendo asks, because he’s not got anything better to do. 

“Told some assholes they were wrong,” the man replies. “They didn’t really like that. I’m Newt, by the way.”

“Tendo,” Tendo replies. 

Newt snaps his fingers. “You’re J-tech, right? We were in the same orientation group I think. I remember, cause I’m K-sci but they assigned me to the wrong orientation group the first day.”

“Yeah,” Tendo says, slightly surprised. 

Newt grins. “Sweet,” he says, “I hear you guys run the gossip mill around here. Anything to share? Please, dude, i’m bored out of my mind and my labmate’s a total dick.”

“Well…” Tendo says, and then drops all pretence of reluctance.

* * *

Newt is K-science, but they do run into each other every so often after that, only partly on purpose, but thankfully not with anyone chasing the biologist. It’s one of these times that they run into each other—off shift, for once—that Newt says, “Hey, have you been to the Red Dragon?”

“You mean the pub downtown?” Tendo asks. “No, why?”

Newt grins. “Sweet,” he says. “What do you say that this weekend you tag along with me and the other K-bio officers to the Red Dragon? I’ll buy you, uh—I don’t know, what do you want?”

“Just a soda, probably,” Tendo says. 

“Boring,” Newt says, and makes a face. “You sound like my lab partner.”

“No need to insult me,” Tendo says, drily. “Why me, anyway?”

Newt, who has absolutely no filter that Tendo can discern—probably why he keeps showing up in medical all banged up—, shrugs and says, “I dunno, you seem pretty cool. Also, everyone else in K-bio is friends but I don’t really know them.”

“…and you know me?” Tendo squints at him. 

“After Friday, that’s the goal,” Newt says. “Anyway—please come? Friday, nine-o'clock, I’ll meet you in LOCCENT after your shift?”

Tendo thinks about it for a moment. “Sure,” he says. “Why not.”

Newt snaps off a set of finger guns and grins. “Sweet,” he says again. 

On Friday, Newt shows up, as promised, in LOCCENT. He’s ten minutes late. Somehow Tendo is unsurprised. “Sorry,” Newt says, sheepishly, “my lab partner and I got into an argument.”

“Maybe you should ask to have a different lab partner,” Tendo suggests, but something about that suggestion must be distasteful to Newt because he scrunches in his nose, glasses pushing up and freckles popping out more than they normally do. Tendo raises his hands in a placating gesture. “Fine,” he says, “keep screaming at each other, then, it’s not me who has to listen to it.”

The Red Dragon, when they get there, is decently crowded. Newt buys him the promised soda and gets himself some kaiju themed drink that Tendo is pretty dubious as to the edibility of. Newt just waves off his concerns. 

Twenty minutes in, Newt’s wandered off after spotting someone that he claimed was his type, leaving Tendo with his soda, sitting by himself.

“Your date abandon you?” someone next to him asks; and Tendo turns to find a woman sat in what was formerly Newt’s seat. 

He shakes his head. “Nah,” he says, “I got invited along by a friend who’s currently probably making out with someone.”

The woman’s eyes crinkle a bit. “So you’re all by your lonesome, then?” she asks. 

“Uh.” Suddenly, Tendo finds his face is warm. “Yeah,” he says.

The other laughs. “I don’t bite,” she says. “My name’s Allison.”

“Tendo,” he replies.

“Tendo,” Allison repeats. “So, you from around here?”

“Nah,” he says; and takes a sip of his soda. “I’m here with the PPDC. I’m a J-tech.” 

Her eyes widen slightly; and then her lips curl. “Huh,” she says. “So that’s why you looked familiar. I bet I’ve seen you around the shatterdome.”

“You with the PPDC too?”

“Yeah.” She nods. “I’m in medical, though—I deal with the rangers mostly.”

“Rangers, huh?” he says; and raises a brow. “What’s that like?”

She laughs. “Hard. Wouldn’t trade it for the world, though. We’re helping.”

“We are,” he murmurs; and believes it, for a fleeting, bright second. 

She buys him another soda when he’s finished his, and something he can’t pronounce for herself, and they fall into talking about nothing much, really, but he’s at ease around her, and Tendo thinks this is exactly what he needed. 

He winds up with her number, but he forgets about that, caught up in conversation. When she leaves, he finds himself alone again for a bit, and then Newt’s back; and he’s grinning at him. “What,” Tendo says. 

“Someone bought you another drink,” Newt says. “Your glass is full. Good on you, Choi.”

“I could just be a real slow drinker,” Tendo protests.

Newt grins wider. “Sure,” he says. 

They go back to the dome at some point; Tendo isn’t quite sure of the hour, just knows it’s late. Newt’s quarters are before his, so he winds up walking the last bit himself. It’s quiet without the little biologist, but not too much, and he falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.

* * *

He winds up running into Allison a few months later; off shift, and he’s snuck out to smoke on the roof. 

“Those will kill you, you know,” says a familiar voice, and tendo turns to see Allison, half cloaked in shadow. 

He grins. “Here for a good time, not a long time,” he says, easily. 

She shrugs. “At least throw it away in the bin when you’re done.”

“Course. What sort of man do you think I am?”

“A handsome one.”

He laughs. “Coming from you.” Because, at the end of the day, he’s pretty sure she wins in that arena—tall and dark haired and with a sort of command to her that is unmistakable. 

She smiles a bit at the words; eyes flashing as she shifts, moves towards him, the light revealing crow’s feet. He draws one last drag and then stubs the cigarette out on the wall next to him. 

He speaks before he even thinks the words. “Do you want to go out for dinner sometime?”

The smile grows; her face twisting into an expression he could get lost in. “I was wondering when you were going to ask.”

They decide on a few weeks later when they both have time off in the evening; and Tendo spends the two days prior worrying about what to wear. Newt calls him ridiculous and tells him to just wear what he normally wears. 

The date goes great; Tendo’s nervousness is gone within ten minutes of sitting down with Allison; something about her is intensely calming; draws him to her like a moth to a flame only her fire won’t burn. He’s in awe of her, a bit. 

They agree to another date; set it for a month later. Tendo walks with a pep in his step for the entire week after. 

They do still live in a world that’s doing its damned hardest to end, though; and when the Beckett brothers go down, it really hits him. 

“I’m going to die,” he whispers; curled up in her arms. “I’m going to die and they probably won’t even know who I am, and—and—“ 

Tears well in his eyes; and he cries, really cries, for the first time in a long while; and Allison holds him to her, gentle, until his breathing calms. “I don’t want to be forgotten,” he whispers. 

“You won’t be,” she says. “Not while there’s still people alive who love you.”

It’s not a declaration of anything, but it lets his mind settle some, until he can drift off. 

A few days later, she presses a small box into his hands when they pass in the halls. He sticks it in his pocket for later. When he opens it, later, he finds a set of dog tags with his name on one, and the inscription _dearly beloved”_ on the other, and he swallows thickly and slips them on for the first time; the cool press against his skin reassuring. 

He wears them right up until the breach is closed; watches the numbers tick down showing its collapse; spots Newt and his lab partner—Doctor Gottlieb; Newt’s Hermann—hug, and then, tentatively, curl towards each other. They disappear from the celebrating crowd, but he doesn’t begrudge them that. 

He leaves, too. Normally, he’d stay and party, but—

Allison is in medical when he gets there; getting prepped for treating Raleigh and Mako, once they get in; and when she sees him, some of the stress drops away. “Tendo,” she says, and sets down a package of gauze. “We made it.”

“We made it,” he echoes. “We really did.” And he finds himself, suddenly, embracing her; and she hugs him back in the silent, empty medical bay.

When they part, he hears the quiet jangle of the dog tags around his neck; and without thinking he reaches to slip them off. “We made it,” he says; stronger, now, and smiles at Allison; tears in both of their eyes, and kisses her, which only lasts a moment because suddenly they’re both laughing. 

“I love you,” he says. “I’m glad we made it.”

She smiles, eyes rich with emotion. “I love you too,” she says. “Let me take that burden from you.” Her fingers gently pry open his, gripping tightly to the metal chain. “Do you want to keep them?”

He shakes his head. “No,” he says, “as long as there are people who love me, I won’t be forgotten.”

It’s an echo of her own words from years ago, and she huffs a slight laugh at them and tosses the chain into the trash can. 

Her other hand is still holding his, though; and he looks at it, waiting. after a moment, their fingers curl together; her callused, large hands cradling his own, gentle. when he looks up, her expression is unguarded; and he could lose himself in it, wants to lose himself in it; has the time to, now; and he thinks maybe he knows what peace feels like. 

“I love you,” he says, again; because he can; and squeezes her hand.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at [autisticharrow](https://autisticharrow.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


End file.
